


They Hide The Ocean In A Shell

by lightningwaltz



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, episode six spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-15
Updated: 2012-05-15
Packaged: 2017-11-05 10:44:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/405529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightningwaltz/pseuds/lightningwaltz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He wonders if she appreciates this moment of stillness, this eye in the storm.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	They Hide The Ocean In A Shell

The world is lousy with water.

Here’s the latest illustration of that tenet; the Avatar is standing in Tahno’s doorway, and snowflakes are melting in her lashes. They’re gone with a few nervous blinks of her eyelids (and that, in and of itself, is an action that produces trace amount of liquid.) Her arms are folded, her face drawn, but she doesn’t back down from his stare. Or, maybe, it’s the other way around. Of a surety there’s an excess of emotion lurking in her expression- Korra’s grown up in a waterbending culture after all- but Tahno rules out pity as her motivator. That’s not how she plays. All the same, he resists the urge to slam the door in her face. These days, the simplest conversations remind him of drawing up stratagems for the arena. It’s too much to handle, too taxing to contemplate when his bed is so very tempting.

Someone, some errant scholar from Ba Sing Se, looking disconcerted to find himself at Wolf-bats victory party, had once told Tahno that the human brain is thought to be three quarters water.

“Taking time out of your busy schedule to see me?”

Korra’s lips twitch slightly. “Don’t be like that.” It’s a bit akin to their earlier altercations, even. The way a shallow pond is like the ocean.

 _This is the only way I know how to be._ “How was your meeting with the police?”

She raises an eyebrow, as though the question is too straightforward. “That’s why I came here, actually.” And it spills out of her; figurative blood from a mental wound. She tells him what investigative forces know about Amon (not much) and what they plan to do about him (well, that confuses them too.) Still, it’s dismally nice to know that someone’s thinking of his well-being. That for Korra he’s not some tragic side note in a larger conflict.

“So, yeah, I thought you deserved to know…” She shifts her weight from foot to foot. Tahno thinks of all those newspaper photos of her after press conferences. How she seems to wear her identity as the Avatar the way some people wear ill-fitting new clothes. When he finally fought her in the arena, he had begun to understand why the fates had chosen her. And she had beaten him, and he’d been livid, and he’d been alive.

“Well, since you came all this way to see me I suppose I could make you some tea?”

“Okay,” she says, in the manner of someone agreeing to something before really thinking it through. “Er… Um.”

Tahno sighs. “Yes, I have to boil water for tea. But I promise I won’t cry about it while you’re here.”

Her face falls. Damn.

“Former wolf-bats’ honor,” he adds. They shake on it.

* 

He’s successfully gotten the Avatar alone, but it amounts to the pair of them sitting on his couch, intermittently sipping tea, and not quite looking at one another.

“What a terrible idea,” he muses. The teacup shakes in his hand, and the water rocks from side to side. He places it back on the table.

“Kind of.” Korra’s voice is earnest. As always. “Good tea, though.” She’s barely touched it.

“If you’d shown up at night, I would’ve offered you liquor instead.” It’s not innuendo, not a threat, not much of anything.

She twists to look at him. “I meant what I said earlier.”

“Don’t you always?” One doesn’t spring from the soil of Republic City as a three-time champion. A fixture and symbol of all this city has to offer. Like Korra, he’d had his own move to the place, his own painfully sincere interviews. But he’d learned, as one must, that this city thrives on good lies and showmanship. He’d learned he enjoys such things. “Mean what you say, that is.”

“Less than some people think. But more than some others think.” She scratches at the back of her head. “Wait a second. Don’t steer me off course.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. So you meant that you feel sorry for me? Good to know.”

“No!” Korra’s hands bunch into fists, and thinks she’s angry about more than his running circles around her show of support. “I meant that you didn’t deserve what happened. Also, that I’m going to get him for you.”

“I believe you nodded at that last part. You didn’t speak.” Tahno swallows, as if to take those words back. He’s not so rich in allies right now.

Korra surprises him by laying an arm on his shoulder, as if to say _sometimes a lack of words can mean something too._

He hugs her, spontaneously, but Korra’s body doesn’t tense up. His arms close around her torso, he buries his head in her neck. She allows her fingers to run through his hair, almost absentmindedly. He wonders if she appreciates this moment of stillness, this eye in the storm.

That same scholar from Ba Sing Se had added that the body is comprised of less water than the brain. Just a little over a half. But right now that seems like so much. So much.


End file.
